Everyday Oneness

Once, I rode the Auto Train between Florida and Virginia. As the overnight ride was drawing to a close, a father was trying to help his very young and still sleepy son gather his things and get ready to disembark the coach as soon as we pulled into the station. I could not see but could overhear the father trying to help the son put on his backpack, which the little boy was clearly struggling with. Apparently, the boy kept putting it on upside-down and the father kept trying to help him. Suddenly the little boy wiggled away from dad, and the backpack swung wide into the air landing in the aisle. It was then that I heard those immortal words: “I can do it all by myself!”

I had to smile. As a little child, I said that to my parents. As a parent, I heard my children say that to me. As a grandparent of littles, I am hearing it anew. And, I must admit, as an adult, I have said it over and over again…maybe not directly…and I hope not with the same whinny voice …but I have said it: “don’t help me! I can do it all by myself!”

The people who study human development tell us that this is to be expected, because a major task of growing up is to be successfully autonomous while at the same learning to build appropriate and healthy attachments that embody trust, respect, and compassion. We need to have healthy boundaries and a good sense of self… to know what’s yours, what’s mine, and what’s ours. So learning when to do things “all by myself” and when to say “help me please” is an important part of growing up… and, as I am learning in retirement, all life long! Which is why, as that little interaction between father and young son shows, growing up is, well, a process.

And then there is that sticky truth that very often our assertions of competence and independence often come exactly at the moment when we are feeling the least competent and the most vulnerable.

Which brings us to today’s Gospel. In it, we hear Jesus praying for his disciples. Now we might be tempted to think that Jesus is only talking about the twelve original apostles, or maybe the band of followers that have gathered around Jesus. But if you remember that a “disciple” is in fact a friend and apprentice of Jesus, all of us folks who believe in Jesus, who have confessed Jesus, and all of us who’ve been baptized are all his disciples.

We are all friends and appentices of Jesus Christ.

Whuch means that Jesus is praying for all of us! He prays that we all may be one. Let’s think about what means for all of us Christians, today and every day.

Jesus prays that we may be one even as Jesus and the Father are one. Notice that even Jesus, the “word”—the logos—that God spoke to make all things come into being, prays to be one with God. You’d think that for him the prayer would be redundant all over again! But Jesus shows us that relationship is at the very core of God’s being.

God did not choose to stand apart in solitary splendor far away from humanity and creation but instead chose to be intimately involved to the point of being born, living a human life, and dying a human death so that we might experience new life one with each other. The Gospel also teaches us that Jesus’ mission is to draw all humanity—that’s us and everyone else—into close relationship with God. Over and over again we find in scripture the truth that Godself is best shown in relationship.

But wait, there’s more! In Jesus’ prayer, we discover that he wants us to be one with each other.

To be One with God means to be One with Christ, and to be One with Christ means that we must be One with each other.  Christians are meant to be One. We are meant to be in community. 

For the Church to be One, there has to be many of us together following Christ. And to be One with God in Christ, means that we must be at unity with other Christians.

There are many things that can trip up our unity with each other and so get in the way with our Oneness with God in Christ. Let’s look at two of them.

The first is that we may mistake agreement for unity. We all hate conflict and are uncomfortable around disagreement, so we look for peace at all costs, which if we are not careful can feel plastic, constricting and fake. But we can never avoid difference and change because we are all different and we all bring unique gifts to the table. Over and over again, in the New Testament shows us that our diversity serves our unity, which is why we call what we are a communion and fellowship.

When I used to teach young people Confirmation class, I would talk about the Oneness of Christ’s people even as we’d visit different churches and experience how other Christians in other traditions (and other believers in other religions) worshipped and gathered in their own way. I often used this illustration: (Are you ready?)

How many flavors will you find in a Baskin-Robbins store? 31, that’s right! And it is all ice cream! How many flavors of church are there… lots! But we are all followers of Jesus!

Which just goes to show that oneness is not sameness. So we pray to resist the temptation of mistaking agreement for unity.

The other temptation is to be too private. Over and over again, we hear Christians talk about their relationship with Christ (if they talk about it at all) as a “personal” relationship. While it is certainly true that our walk with God in Christ is deeply personal, even spiritually intimate, it is not a personal possession to be kept to ourselves. We might be tempted to say that since the path I am on works so well for me, it’s got to be the best and only road to heaven… a kind of spiritual “my way or the highway!”

And many of us Episcopalians, and others in the so-called mainline churches, we have been taught that our religion and spirituality is a private thing, best kept out of polite conversation. To talk about our spiritual lives with any kind of frank honesty can appear intrusive and make us feel uncomfortable. And so we rarely talk about our prayer except in the most general terms, nor do we encourage people to inquire with each other as to what God is doing in our lives or what gives their living purpose, hope and meaning. An overly private faith can mean that we never ask important questions out loud and that robs us of the ability to wrestle with important things. It also means that it’s hard to really let our faith inform our ethics. While we might not want to impose our beliefs on other people rudely, an overly private religion can get in the way of our growth and stop us from learning the language and habits of faith.

People tell me all the time “I am spiritual but not religious.” Okay. Leaving aside the implicit and unhelpful assumption that any outward form of faith—say, Sacramental Living—is “only” religious but not spiritual and therefore somehow invalid… if discussing our faith and talking about what moves us spiritually is taboo…if it is embarrassing or feels “weird”…how can we ever grow in the spirituality that we claim is so important? 

And, I don’t know about you, the truth is that when I am left to my own devices, I am a spiritual klutz, always bumping into things. I need help.

To live out Jesus’ prayer that we be One as He and the Father are One, requires us to be conscious of how God is at work in our lives. And to be conscious of God at work in us, we have to find the language of how to talk about God, our faith, and what gives our lives meaning and ask our questions in a way that feels natural, safe, and comfortable for us. We need the help of people who are on the same journey. Christian community provides the spiritual companionship we need to help us discover that we are indeed One with God in Christ.

Some years ago, I was at a men’s retreat put on by the Brotherhood of St. Andrew (a kind of Daughters of the King but for men), and during the weekend I found myself in a conversation with five other men none of whom I met before but all of whom were engineers or in a technical or scientific profession. They were continuing a conversation that I came in the middle of. It started when one of them asked out loud “How can I believe in Jesus, when I am in a world that demands empirical proof and evidence?” So here I was listening to a group of men talk about faith, science, engineering and meaning.

This was not a debate. No one was trying to change anyone’s mind. And yet it was a very animated discussion. The excitement came from the fact that these men were sharing each other’s story. It was a conversation that rarely happens and yet it was on the minds of these men all the time, just without an outlet.

Which leads me the best part of today’s Gospel. Jesus’ prayer that we may be one as he and the Father are one is already being fulfilled! The incarnation, cross, and resurrection saw to that! We are already through our baptisms re-united with Christ! What we need is practice! We need time and help to rehearse the story of God in our lives. And shows us what it means to be one.

The second-century theologian Tertullian said, “One Christian is no Christian.” But so very often we are just like that little boy on the train… we want to do it all by ourselves! And that can be good, but sooner or later we discover that we also need each other. The Gospel reminds us that we are One only when we are learning and doing the work of Jesus together. In our faith and baptisms, we are one as Jesus and the Father are one, and together we can practice making Jesus’ prayer come true every day.

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Scripture for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year C, June 1, 2025

Website for Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, Dunedin, Florida

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here

Here is the bulletin for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year C, June 1, 2025, the Church of the Good Shepherd, Dunedin, Florida.

Here is the livestream of the June 1, 2025 9 a.m. liturgy at Good Shepherd, Dunedin, Florida (sermon starts after 37:15).